It was Christmas week, and she would soon see her boyfriend,
Johnny, for the first time since he moved earlier in 2014.

Brown, an F-15 and F-22 mission-capable supervisor for the
438th Supply Chain Operations Squadron here, said she knew the distance would
make it hard to maintain their relationship, but that at no point did she
regret her decision to stay together.

She was about to find out how much Johnny shared her
sentiment.

A Christmas Proposal

"He proposed to me on Christmas Day, and of course, I
said yes," Brown said. "From that point on, I knew we would make it,
no matter the distance or the struggles we faced."

They married a week later. This year's Valentine's Day is
the first one in their marriage, and they'll spend it apart, but they’ve found
ways to not just bear their separation, but to grow from it.

"Whether preparing for a deployment, temporary duty,
[permanent change of station] or anything else, there is nothing that can tear
apart a solid relationship," she said. "It can be stressful to
maintain the relationship while we are both on active duty, but it isn't
impossible. Sometimes, it is even helpful."

Brown said she believes the need to keep their mental,
spiritual, emotional and physical pillars strong lends to their success.

"We take time to schedule video calls, we have similar
physical fitness goals, we maintain our work ethics, and we both exercise our
spirituality," Brown said. "It isn't easy -- I won't lie -- but
staying healthy individually makes our challenges more bearable."

Personal, Professional Lives Both Benefit

Air Force Senior Airman Johnny Brown, Sergeant Brown’s
husband, is an F-15 crew chief for the 18th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron at
Kadena Air Base, Japan. He said their lives as airmen and their marriage
benefit each other.

"We understand our roles as airmen require us to stay
strong, and it is a blessing to see that success positively impact our
marriage," he said. "In turn, having a successful relationship also
makes us [individually] stronger, so it is beneficial both ways."

Sergeant Brown said seeing the big picture is important in
coping with separation from a loved one.

"I know the Air Force mission is important, and I know
there will be more Valentine's Days to spend with him,” she said.
“Understanding that life can be hard, accepting those curveballs and finding
the positive aspects of a bad situation can make all the difference."

Perspective is a Choice

Sergeant Brown admits it’s easy to become lonely and
frustrated with the separation, but she said her perspective ultimately is a
choice.

"I choose not to have that attitude, and so can anyone
else,” she said. “I don't think about how my husband is gone on Valentine's
Day. “I am just grateful to have the best Valentine any one could ever ask
for."

Sergeant Brown won't take a plane to see Airman Brown this
Valentine’s Day. Due to the 13-hour time difference and his work shift, she may
not even get to talk to him. But even though he is thousands of miles away, she
said, she knows a quick prayer and a glance at the rings on her finger will put
her Valentine right by her side.

WASHINGTON, Feb. 12, 2015 – Ash Carter, a former deputy
defense secretary who today received a 93-5 affirmative vote by the U.S. Senate
to succeed Chuck Hagel as defense secretary, received a welcome back and praise
from President Barack Obama.

“Ash Carter served as a key leader of our national security
team in the first years of my presidency, and with his overwhelming bipartisan
confirmation by the Senate today, I’m proud to welcome him back as our next
secretary of defense,” Obama said in a White House statement issued today.
“With his decades of experience, Ash will help keep our military strong as we
continue the fight against terrorist networks, modernize our alliances, and
invest in new capabilities to keep our armed forces prepared for long-term
threats.”

As secretary of defense, the president continued, “Ash will
play a central role in our work with Congress to find a more responsible approach
to defense spending that makes the department more efficient, preserves
military readiness, and keeps faith with our men and women in uniform and their
families.

“We have the strongest military in the history of the
world,” Obama added, “and with Secretary Carter at the Pentagon and our troops
serving bravely around the world, we’re going to keep it that way.”

Hagel will remain in office as defense secretary until
Carter is sworn in.

WASHINGTON, Feb. 12, 2015 – It is imperative to modernize
the Air Force despite difficult budgeting choices that will have to be made,
Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark A. Welsh III said today in Orlando, Florida.

Speaking during the Air Force Association Air Warfare
Symposium and Technology Exposition, the general discussed the need for force
modernization.

“We must modernize the Air Force,” he said. “This isn’t
optional; we must do it. And it will be painful, because we have to make very
difficult choices to get the money inside our topline at current funding levels
to do it.”

Aging Fleets

Welsh explained how aging fleets and less personnel strength
can affect the Air Force’s mission.

“Most of you will remember Desert Shield and Desert Storm,”
he said. “When we deployed in 1990 to that conflict, the United States Air
Force had 188 fighter squadrons -- 188. In the FY ‘16 budget, we’ll go to 49;
188 to 49.”

Welsh noted in 1990, there were 511,000 active duty airmen;
now the Air Force has 313,000 -- a 40 percent smaller force.

“There is no excess capacity anymore,” he said. “There is no
bench to go to in the Air Force. Everything’s committed to the fight.”

“I’d love to be able to tell you that, that much smaller
force is more modern, more capable [and] younger, but I can’t,” Welsh said.

Providing perspective on the age of the fleet, Welsh said
during Desert Storm the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress wasn’t considered for
bombing Baghdad.

“If we had used the B-17 in the first Gulf War,” he said,
“it would have been five years younger at that time than the B-52, the KC-135
and the U-2 are today.”

“We have 12 fleets of airplanes … that qualify for antique
license plates right here in the great state of Florida,” Welsh said. “And we
have four that qualify for … [AARP].”

NASCAR Analogy

The general used a NASCAR race picture led by the #43 Air
Force-sponsored stock car to further drive home his point.

“Four laps before this picture was taken, the 43 car had a
four- to five-car-length lead,” Welsh said.

“For the last couple of laps, the #41 and #55 cars have been
steadily closing,” he said. “The gap’s shrinking just like our technology lap,
just like our capacity gap is shrinking.”

When do we get to the point, Welsh asked, where no matter
how fast #43 tries to accelerate, the momentum gained by 41 and 55 puts them in
the lead?

“That’s the game we’re playing,” he said. “Tough game; maybe
a dangerous one.”

Resetting the Force

Welsh said Air Force leadership has been trying to reset
some areas for the last couple of years.

“Not because they’re broken,” he said, “not because we’re
not doing great work, but because we need to reset some things. We’ve done this
before.”

Following World War I, Welsh said, the Army Air Corps noted
the “big lessons” learned, which were reconnaissance and pursuit. Then, he
said, during World War II the lessons of strategic bombardment became clear.

“We came out of World War II with this idea that strategic
bombardment was the future of air forces,” Welsh said. Except for a tactical
diversion in Korea, he said, the service’s leaders focused on building the best
strategic Air Force they could.

The general said Vietnam yielded tactical lessons learned,
which led to a “really good” tactical and strategic Air Force.

“It wasn’t that easy, but we were that good and that large,”
he said. “And then for the last 25 years, we’ve been fighting a different type
of enemy -- a shadowy enemy, harder to pin down, harder to isolate.”

Serving in more of a counterinsurgency supporting role,
Welsh said, the Air Force “revolutionized and gave birth” to an entirely new
generation of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capability, and a
new understanding of how it could be used.

“Where we’ve come in the last 25 years in ISR is stunning,”
he said. “We operationalized space capabilities; we jumped into the cyber
domain. But it’s been about 25 years and that’s about the cycle for these
resets –- it’s time to do it again.”

Next for the Air Force

Welsh noted there are specific areas in need for reset --
namely infrastructure.

“We’ve spent a lot of time lately taking money out of this
[area] to pay for operational activity as our budgets were stressed,” he said.

“But there is infrastructure in our Air Force which creates
mission capability,” Welsh said. “I’ll refer to it as critical mission
infrastructure. This isn’t something [like] you can just not build another dorm
and it won’t hurt you over time … this is stuff that will keep you from
developing combat capability.”

This infrastructure, he said, includes test facilities,
training ranges and simulation, education infrastructure and nuclear
infrastructure -- things that the service cannot do without.

“We have got to get back,” Welsh said, “to a persistent,
consistent investment in this kind of infrastructure, or our Air Force will
break 10 years from now.”